Soyoil around 18-month highs, grains fall on good crop weather
Crude oil fell after renewed military strikes by Israel and Iran over the weekend left oil production and export facilities unaffected, easing concern about disruption of crude supplies. That removed some of the support for soybean prices, which tend to move in tandem with oil, that was seen on Friday.
The larger-than-expected biofuel blend proposals, however, still supported the soy complex.
The Chicago Board of Trade's most-active soyoil rose 5.7% to 53.50 cents per pound at 1131 GMT, around its highest since December 2023. Soyoil gains also pulled soybeans up 0.1% at $10.71-3/4 per bushel.
Wheat fell 1.2% to $5.37-1/4 a bushel as the U.S. winter wheat harvest accelerates. Corn fell 1.1% to $4.39-1/2 a bushel, weakened by favourable weather forecasts for crop development in the U.S. corn belt.
'Soybeans and soyoil are being underpinned by the Trump administration's larger-than-expected biofuel blending proposals which would generate more demand for soyoil and so soybeans," said Matt Ammermann, StoneX commodity risk manager.
"The Trump Administration is not known to be renewable energy-friendly, but the substantial increase could be intended to reduce the sting of the trade war with China, which has hugely damaged U.S. soy exports to China.'
Traders await weekly crop ratings on Monday from the U.S. Department of Agriculture, with U.S. winter wheat harvesting accelerating, corn and soybean planting is finishing.
'Wheat and corn are weaker today as crop weather in the U.S. is looking very positive this week, with just the right mix of sunshine needed for the winter wheat harvest with a little rain needed for corn development,' said Ammermann.
'Other north hemisphere wheat crops are also looking good, especially in the Black Sea. This raises the prospects of extra competition from the Black Sea to exporters in the U.S. and other regions.'
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Arabian Business
29 minutes ago
- Arabian Business
Can Gen Z save Kodak?
Gen Z could yet save Kodak. That might sound fanciful in a world of 4K phones and instant filters, but wander through a campus or a gig and you'll see the evidence: point-and-shoots, 35mm canisters, and kids waiting days for contact sheets like it's 1999. I grew up on that rhythm – sprinting to the photo studio, breathing in the chemical tang, racing home with an envelope of prints to slide into albums and pass around the table. Lately, I've watched the ritual reappear at events where organisers hand out disposables or instant prints. Film is cool again precisely because it slows you down. And if any brand still defines that feeling, it's Kodak. Which is why its current financial strain feels so jarring. The question now is whether this youth-led analog revival can do more than spark demand – can it steady the company that taught the world to remember? Why Gen Z are the GOAT Why this matters now In its second-quarter update this month, Eastman Kodak warned it lacks committed financing to meet roughly $500 million of obligations coming due within 12 months – wording that, under US accounting rules, triggers a 'substantial doubt' going-concern warning. The stock fell about 25 to 26 per cent on the headlines. The same filing shows a $26 million net loss for Q2, revenue down 1 per cent to $263 million, and about $155 million of cash at quarter-end. The P&L isn't fatal; the debt clock is. Kodak's response is that this is timing, not terminal. Management plans to terminate the long-running US pension, revert an estimated surplus and use roughly $300 million of it to pay down the term loan, then amend, extend or refinance what remains. The company has said it has no plans to cease operations or file for bankruptcy and expects to be close to net-debt-free once the transactions complete. Lenders have already tweaked covenants so pension proceeds can flow straight to repayment. Execution risk is real; the logic is clear. If you've followed Kodak for any length of time, the deja vu is sharp. This is the 133-year-old company that once commanded 90 per cent of US film and 85 per cent of camera sales in the 1970s, helped invent the digital camera in 1975, then missed the turn and filed for Chapter 11 in 2012. It re-emerged smaller, focused on commercial print, advanced materials and chemicals, motion-picture film and a leaner consumer line while licensing the Kodak name across products. A brand built on memory has had to reinvent itself to avoid becoming one. The analog tailwind is real Culture is doing Kodak a favour. Analog wellness – the choice to log off and embrace tactile, pre-digital experiences – is very much a 2025 trend. Film photography sits in that slipstream: 36 exposures, no instant feedback, attention sharpened by constraint. This, to some extent, might be retro cosplay but I think it points to a modern appetite for something physical and imperfect. Supply tells the same story. Kodak's still-film output more than doubled between 2015 and 2019 as the revival took root. In late 2024, the company paused lines to upgrade its Rochester plant to meet rising orders in still and motion-picture film. That was an investment signal, not a retreat. Talk to young photographers and the motive is simple: they're opting out of digital perfection. Grain, colour wobble and delayed gratification feel more authentic than infinitely corrected smartphone shots. In 2025, shooting film has become a badge of intention and individuality. What Gen Z can do, and what Kodak must do Gen Z alone can't fix a balance sheet. Film is culturally powerful but commercially niche. Kodak's revenue still leans on print technology and specialty chemicals; analog's job is to keep the brand relevant, widen the funnel and generate dependable cash – not carry the whole enterprise. So keep the on-ramp frictionless. Those Rochester upgrades need to translate into full shelves for the emulsions first-timers actually buy (Gold, ColorPlus, Portra and Tri-X) at an entry price that feels like an easy 'yes,' not really a luxury. Nothing kills a movement like scarcity and sticker shock. Film spreads socially – through campus clubs, creator communities and indie labs – so Kodak doesn't need a glossy ad campaign as much as it needs to underwrite where the habit forms. Bundle lab credits with multi-packs. Co-sponsor 'learn to shoot film' days. Make it easy to go from canister to album. Delight the faithful without turning film into a museum piece. Limited-run revivals of discontinued stocks, transparent batch notes, small-batch 'experiments': treat special emulsions like the drops sneakerheads queue for. And keep the story forward-looking. The point of film in 2025 is not only about nostalgia, but presence – earning the frame. That's what hooked me as a kid racing to the lab, and it's what's pulling today's twenty-somethings into the same ritual. The assignment First, defuse the debt clock: get the pension cash in, pay down the loan, and refinance or extend the rest – exactly as promised. Only then does Kodak earn the breathing room to play offence – capacity, price discipline, community – instead of managing quarter to quarter. I'm sentimental about film because I grew up spreading prints across the table and building albums everyone gathered around. I'm also pragmatic. Gen Z won't 'save' Kodak by feeling things; they'll do it by buying rolls, developing them and coming back for more – but only if Kodak meets them halfway. Right now, the culture is handing Kodak the rare gift of relevance. Convert that into reliable supply, sensible pricing and smart partnerships, and the youth-driven revival turns into durable cash flow. The culture has done its part. Now Kodak needs to do its job.
Crypto Insight
2 hours ago
- Crypto Insight
SEC Chair Atkins: There are very few tokens that are securities
US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) Chair Paul Atkins suggested only a small fraction of crypto tokens should be considered securities, as part of the agency's changing approach to what constitutes a security under its purview. Speaking from the Wyoming Blockchain Symposium in Jackson Hole on Tuesday, Atkins discussed how the SEC's 'Project Crypto' initiative to establish rules on digital assets could affect how the agency addresses companies moving forward. He signaled that the SEC would chart its own path, as members of Congress consider bills to establish market structure. 'We can not go about looking at [tokens] themselves as necessarily being a security,' said Atkins, adding: 'From the SEC's perspective, we will plow forward and on this idea that just the token itself is not necessarily the security, and probably not. There are very few, in my mind, tokens that are securities, but it depends on what's the package around it and how that's being sold.' Atkins' remarks represented a stark change from those of former SEC Chair Gary Gensler, who said the 'vast majority' of crypto assets were securities under the SEC's standard of the Howey test. Gensler resigned from the SEC in January on the day US President Donald Trump was sworn into office, leading to Commissioner Mark Uyeda becoming acting chair of the agency until Atkins' confirmation. Awaiting 'clear rules of the road' from Congress While Atkins, as chair, presumably has the authority to interpret SEC rules and guidelines, including those covering digital assets, members of Congress are planning to pass a new law to establish a crypto market structure in September. The US House of Representatives passed the Digital Asset Market Clarity (CLARITY) Act in July, and leaders at the Senate Banking Committee said they would 'build on' the bill to pass their version of market structure. The Senate is scheduled to return from recess on Sept. 2. Also speaking at the Wyoming Blockchain Symposium on Tuesday, Senate Banking Committee Chair Tim Scott suggested that as many as 18 Democrats could join with Republicans in supporting market structure legislation. Source:
Tahawul Tech
4 hours ago
- Tahawul Tech
Cisco President outlines the biggest AI adoption mistake
Cisco's President Jeetu Patel doesn't believe in the doomsaying from other tech leaders that AI will make entry-level jobs vanish. 'I just refuse to believe that humans are going to be obsolete. It just seems like it's an absurd concept', Jeetu Patel, who's also the Chief Product Officer at AI infrastructure company Cisco, told CNN. While Patel acknowledged there will be 'growing pains where people will get disrupted,' he strongly pushed back on Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei's comments saying AI will spike unemployment to as high as 20% and eliminate half of all white-collar entry level jobs. He's one of several tech leaders that have pushed back on Amodei's narrative; others have said AI is likely to change jobs by requiring workers to adopt new skills rather than wiping out jobs completely. Still, his comments come amid a plunge in entry-level hiring and as tech giants are increasingly using AI in the workplace, raising questions about the future of work. 'Dario is a friend. We are investors in Anthropic. I have a ton of respect for what he's done. In this area though, I have a slightly different opinion on a couple of different dimensions,' Patel at Ai4, an AI conference in Las Vegas. 'I reject the notion that humans are going to be obsolete in like five years, that we're not going to have anything to do and we're going to be sitting on the beach… It doesn't make any sense.' In particular, Patel said he has a 'huge concern' with Amodei's line of thinking that AI could wipe out entry-level jobs because companies benefit from adding younger workers who often better understand new technologies. 'If you just say, 'I'm going to eradicate all entry-level jobs,' that's the stupidest thing a company can do in the long term because what you've done is you've actually taken away the injection of new perspective,' the Cisco exec said. 'A really bad strategy' Patel argued that for some jobs, having significant experience can be a 'massive liability.' For instance, he said people often hold assumptions about things that may not have worked five years ago, but do now. That's why Patel said he spends 'an enormous amount of time' with younger employees and interns. 'I learn a lot from people who've just gotten out of college because they have a fresh and unique perspective. And that perspective coupled with (my) experience makes magic happen,' Patel said. 'It would be a really bad strategy to not have early in career people and entry level people injected in your workplace.' Is AI already hurting entry-level workers? Some economists say there are early signs suggesting AI may already be depressing entry-level jobs. Even though the overall job market has been mostly healthy, the Class of 2025 faces the worst job market for new college graduates in years. For the first time since tracking started in 1980, the unemployment rate for recent graduates (those 22 to 27 years old with at least a bachelor's degree) is higher than the national unemployment rate, according to Oxford Economics. Entry-level hiring has tumbled by 23% between March 2020 and May 2025, outpacing the 18% decline in overall hiring over that span, according to data from LinkedIn. This is happening for a variety of reasons, some of them unrelated to AI. But AI does seem to be playing a role, some economists say. For instance, Oxford Economics noted that employment in two industries vulnerable to AI disruption — computer science and mathematics — has dropped by 8% since 2022 for recent graduates. By comparison, employment has little changed in those industries for older workers. 'AI is definitely displacing some of these lower-level jobs,' Matthew Martin, senior US economist at Oxford Economics, told CNN in June. 'AI can't buy you a steak dinner' Economists and AI researchers say the jobs most at risk involve repetitive tasks that can be automated, such as data input. 'The less interesting clerical jobs will go away. They will be automated. And if you don't automate, you'll go out of business,' Alan Ranger, vice president of marketing at Cognigy, told CNN on the sidelines of Ai4. Cognigy would know: It sells conversational AI agents that provide customer support for banks, airlines and other companies. Ranger said Cognigy's AI agents came to the rescue when German airline Lufthansa had to cancel every flight due to a strike in Germany earlier this year. The technology allowed Lufthansa to rebook thousands of flights per minute, he said. Ranger argued that companies won't massively lay off customer support workers because humans still need to manage the AI agents, design the software and tackle other complex issues. Yet he did concede that companies will have fewer customer support workers in the future as people leave the industry and retire, and because firms will hire for different roles. 'Account management and sales roles won't get replaced anytime soon,' Ranger said. 'An AI can't buy you a steak dinner.' Patel, the Cisco executive, said the onus is on the tech industry and society as a whole to ensure a smooth transition to superintelligent AI. 'In tech, we live in a bubble. We keep thinking, 'Oh, disruption is just part of it.' But when a steel mill worker gets disrupted, they don't become an AI prompt engineer,' he said. Patel said there is a lot of retraining and reskilling that must be done in tandem with governments and educators. 'The tech community has to actually take some responsibility for this,' he said. 'Because if we don't, you will create some level of pain in society and we want to make sure we avoid that.' Source: CNN Image Credit: Stock Image
